Installer question: Directory produced by the setup project

[Michael A. Covington]

When I build my setup project, I get three files: setup.exe, setup.ini. and
myapplication.msi.

These go into a folder called (setup project)/bin/Release. If any other
files are in that folder, they get deleted.

What I'd *like* is that when I build the setup project, the files that it
creates should go into a directory that I specify, and not delete any other
files that are already in it. That way I can maintain an image of my
install CD, which contains some additional material.

How can I make it do this?

Thanks,

 

[David Guyer [MS]]

I'm not sure you can prevent the build from cleaning the output directory.
The build output dir is kind of "owned" by the build engine, and it needs
to so that it builds the right set of files. For example, if you are
building loose, and you build once, then remove a file from your setup and
build again. If the build output directory isn't cleaned, it will leave
behind a file you removed. Bad mojo.

So, the best solution is to copy the files manually or using a script to
your CD image after building.